Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez has said that he has held a telephone conversation with his Somali counterpart, Ali Mohamed Omar, on the whereabouts of two Cuban doctors abducted by Al Shabaab in 2019.
Rodriguez said on X on Thursday that he and Omar agreed on the need to cooperate to clarify the status of the doctors, according to the official Cuban news agency Prensa Latina.
The two Cubans were part of a group of doctors sent to Kenya in 2018 as part of a deal between the two countries to help improve medical services in Kenya.
They were kidnapped in 2019 while heading to a hospital in the northeastern town of Mandera for work from their hotel.
Al Shabaab said this month that US air strikes had killed the two doctors in the Somali town of Jilib.
The US Africa Command, which has conducted airstrikes against Al Shabaab in the past, did not comment on the group’s claim.
Cuba’s foreign minister said on Feb. 22 that “we have confidence” in Kenya’s “willingness to support efforts to clarify the situation facing Cuban doctors Assel Herrera and Landy Rodríguez”.
Kenyan leader William Ruto said on X that he had met Esteban Lazo Hernandez, the president of Cuba’s National Assembly, in Nairobi to receive “a special message from President Miguel Diaz-Canel”.
